


our lives don't collide (i'm aware of this)

by bloodsuckersunshine



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Andrew Minyard Loves Neil Josten, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hotels, Hurt Andrew Minyard, M/M, Mentioned Nathan Wesninski, Nathan Wesninski sucks, POV Andrew Minyard, Secret Relationship, Sharing a Bed, Soft Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Sort Of, andrew minyard feels feelings and hates it so much, how do u even tag, i am confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodsuckersunshine/pseuds/bloodsuckersunshine
Summary: "Father was going to figure things out eventually, and I refuse to have you be caught in the crossfire.I won’t be like them. I won’t let you let me be.And Andrew, maybe I am nothing and you are nothing, but you will never be nothing to me.”He is laughing at the inevitability of it all as everything comes collapsing around him, feels it sear him skin to bone.But Andrew has made Neil into his very own natural disaster, so what other choice does he have left than to wade through the carnage left behind?
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 25
Kudos: 113





	our lives don't collide (i'm aware of this)

_I’m trying not to let it show, that I don’t want to let this go_

_Is there somewhere you can meet me?_

×

Andrew has always been many things, but he has never been this reckless, so now he is left wondering when that changed.

Because he is looking at Neil, who is the son of the man that runs this godforsaken city with an iron fist stained too much with blood, and he is dancing around the hotel room wearing nothing but Andrew’s shirt and neon orange tube socks. Neil, who should not make the infinity of all other things that exist in this universe fade so impossibly into the background of Andrew’s mind, but does.

Neil’s face is lit up like some highway sign in the dead of night and Andrew can’t stop staring. He can’t stop staring and he can’t bring himself to care that he might well go blind. His chest aches and aches and aches.

Because he is looking at Neil, and Neil is a god damn vision, and if Andrew’s foundations feel a little too close to collapse—well, then, it is nobody’s business but his own.

×

They are on the balcony of the same hotel room and this is just another one of their routines at this point, another set of moments stolen in the dead of night with clutching hands and desperate eyes. Neil gives Andrew his lit cigarette before resting his head on his shoulder.

He is looking at the city and Andrew is trying so hard not to look at him. Neil’s presence beside him makes him feel like he is standing on top of the sky. It makes him feel like he is six feet under.

Andrew thinks that maybe he would make the world collapse to keep this, whatever this is, because it does not feel like nothing.

It never really did.

He does not think that maybe heights do not make him feel the same anymore because every moment he spends with Neil, he becomes more familiar with falling.

×

Neil is sobbing into his chest and it is so ugly Andrew cannot find it in himself to remember how to breathe. Partially because he has never seen Neil cry before, but also because he had never imagined that actually seeing Neil in this state would feel as much as it does like being thrown off the roof and having his entire being crash onto the pavement below. More than a little helpless, with parts of himself he had long thought dead raging and raging.

Neil is all bruised and bloodied up and Nathan Wesninski is probably going to tear the city to shreds when he finds his ragdoll of a son gone but there is not a single part of Andrew that could possibly allow himself to stand and watch as he lets Neil go back to the hellhole he has been trying so wildly to claw his way out of.

He puts a hand on the back of Neil’s neck and it is as much an action meant to be grounding for one as it is for the other. His mind feels like an ocean wave that crashes and crashes and crashes, painfully relentless.

It is full of Neil, Neil, Neil.

×

That night as they lay awake, Neil is a study in contrasts with the moonlight pouring over his flaming hair and glacial eyes against the crisp white bedsheets. Andrew’s single-minded observation of him is an exercise in self-destruction as he watches and watches and watches until he cannot imagine ever living without every detail committed to memory.

And then Neil is looking at him like that, and Andrew hates it so much that once upon a time perhaps he would have tried to bleed this feeling out of himself, but now he only just wants to keep it. He wants to keep it more than he has ever wanted anything, when he should not be wanting anything in the first place.

He does not believe in regret, but he thinks that perhaps this once he might be made to.

×

Much later, when the sun is almost threatening to paint over the night, Andrew feels his eyes grow heavy. They are lying on their sides facing each other on the bed and he looks at Neil, and then their eyes are locking onto each other’s across the space kept between the two of them that is not quite the chasm it first used to be.

He says, “Stay.”

Maybe he should have caught it. Would have, if his brain did not feel quite so unusually muddled with exhaustion. Would have seen Neil look too wistful, too much like the martyr he has always been.

Neil is still looking at him in that way of his, but Andrew cannot bring himself to mind. Not this time, not now. Neil is too quiet as he whispers a _“Yes or no?”_ before he is leaning forward and pressing his lips to Andrew’s forehead. There is a feeling in Andrew’s chests that is metastasizing like some sort of tumor when it is anything but, and it is the very opposite of the quiet he has felt his entire life. Maybe, he thinks, this is what it might mean to be alive. But Neil still seems to be acting a little too strange, and he is a little too quiet when eventually he speaks. Andrew has drifted off a little too much, conscious enough to hear the words but not so much to pick up on the reality weakly concealed behind them.

“Thank you.

You were amazing.”

It sounds a little too much like goodbye.

×

Maybe he should have specified how long he wanted Neil to stay, because morning has come but Neil is gone.

×

He is laughing at the inevitability of it all as everything comes collapsing all around him, as he feels it sear him skin to bone.

It is not like any of it comes as a surprise, if he is being honest. Because where Andrew’s instinct is fight, Neil’s has always been flight. He should have seen it coming from miles away. Some part of him did see it coming, sort of. He just thought that for the first time in his life, he might be proven wrong.

But Andrew has made Neil into his very own natural disaster, so now what other choice does he have left than to wade through the carnage left behind?

Neil is nothing if not a whirlwind, he had come and now he has gone. Andrew should have known better than for them to let themselves get attached, so he should not be surprised that now he is tearing at the seams.

×

A recording in the mail. No return address. There is static crackling. Whoever it is seems only to be breathing at first, an apparent mustering up of some courage before they speak.

_“Andrew,_

_I should probably know better than to say sorry but the truth is—I am, I am sorry, and I am not going to leave you with a lie._

_I never did want to leave but it was all borrowed time, anyway. I do not think I know how to tell you how much I did not want to leave. Just this once._

_God, just this once._

_But father was going to figure things out eventually, and I refuse to have you be caught in the crossfire._

_You may not hold your life in high regard, nor may some others, but I won’t be like them. I won’t let you let me be._

_If I could do this all over again, I would do it a thousand times over. A million. Even just once more._

_Because this was never nothing. Not to me._

_I have been here so long, and I have been every inch a lie. You made me into something real._

_And Andrew, maybe I am nothing and you are nothing, but you will never be nothing to me.”_

×

**A Year Later**

There’s someone pounding on the door at three in the morning. Standing outside is a pipedream with blue eyes, scars and burns etched freshly onto his face. His expression is devoid of anything but cold, thinly veiled manic glee but his voice is warm when he states, “It is done.”

Andrew does not ask. He only says, “Stay.”

This time, Neil does.

×

_I’m sorry but I fell in love tonight_

_I didn’t mean to fall in love tonight_

_You’re looking like you fell in love tonight_

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from the song FOOLS by Troye Sivan, lyrics mentioned in the text from the song Is There Somewhere by Halsey. i apologize for any mistakes, english is my third language and i'm way too exhausted to proofread this shit again. let me know ur thoughts in the comments! and remember, every flower in the world wants u to be happy x


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